E're the ebbing tide of day
Should fade from the world away.

Then light melted softly to shadow
And the blue of the sky turned grey,
While a veil of deepening twilight
Warned us to haste away,
For the winter nights are bleak
In the wilds by that lonely peak.




[*]Beside the Ocstall

I mused one day beside the Ocstall River
Where trailing mists went drifting softly by;
And waterfalls in thunderous voices calling,
Their vaporous breath raised to a burdened sky.

What mystic spell? what strange compelling passion
Did hold the sons of Britain toiling there?
What charm was there in that great lonely region
Enticing them from distant lands, more fair?

Fantastic cloud wreaths draped a sea of mountains:
Forest and muskeg in the vales held sway;
To win a fortune from those wild surroundings
Men came, then could not from them break away.